More on Bruno Maderna

Pliable has posted, once again, on Bruno Maderna. It is indeed nice to see an important and interesting composer (no slouch of a conductor, either) get some attention. I posted earlier about Maderna's incandescent Mahler 9th. The fact that he could wring such a performance (1971) out of the BBC Symphony Orchestra is even more impressive when you remember that beginning his tenure as chief conductor of that ensemble at roughly the same time (1971-1976: contemporary with his NYPO directorship). The London audiences certainly got both sides of Darmstadt - the rigidly controlled Boulez and the impulsive Maderna - for a brief while.

Had Maderna not died in 1973 of cancer, he would have turned 87 in April.